[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 165 (Tuesday, December 14, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2125]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ``STEVEN SOLARZ: A GREAT MEMBER OF CONGRESS''

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, December 14, 2010

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, earlier this month, 
America lost one of the outstanding people to have served in this 
House. Steven Solarz was a Member of the House from 1974-1992, and no 
Member either in my personal experience or in my reading of history was 
a more effective and constructive leader in foreign policy as a Member 
of the House. Too often, Members of Congress, especially the House 
Members, distinguish themselves in the foreign policy field mostly in a 
negative way. Sometimes that is a very good thing because these Members 
are preventing things from happening that shouldn't happen. But there 
is a tendency to demagogue and to play to public dislike of foreigners. 
Steven Solarz was a role model for those who think that Members of the 
House have a constructive role to play in foreign policy. Without ever 
having risen to the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee, he 
made himself an extremely significant positive force in foreign policy, 
for human rights, and for constructive American relations with a wide 
range of nations. He understood the importance of our being strong when 
we had to be, and of our being open and generous when that was called 
for.
  Madam Speaker, Steve Solarz was a personal friend of mine for many 
years, and I suppose that people could claim that I have exaggerated 
the greatness of the role he played because of that. So I was 
particularly pleased to see that one of the best students of Congress, 
Norman Ornstein, expressed eloquently and cogently the importance of 
the role Steve Solarz played in foreign policy as a House Member, in 
his December 8, 2010 article in Roll Call.
  Madam Speaker, as an example that I believe all Members ought to 
aspire to, I ask that Norman Ornstein's deserved tribute to Steven 
Solarz's foreign policy leadership be printed here.

                     [From Roll Call, Dec. 8, 2010]

               Rep. Solarz Was a Leader Worth Remembering

                          (By Norman Ornstein)

       This is the season for farewell addresses from many 
     lawmakers leaving at the end of the 111th Congress. Some 
     speeches, such as those of Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) a few 
     weeks back and of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) last week, are 
     particularly poignant, reflecting decades of dedication to 
     the Senate and reverence for its traditions (if a touch too 
     much deference to its existing rules and too little concern 
     for how the contemporary abuse of the norms have distorted 
     those traditions and call for modest but meaningful tweaks in 
     those rules).
       But their eloquence underscores how elections, while 
     bringing necessary change for a democracy and reaffirming 
     popular will, also result in the departure of some of the 
     most solid citizens of the Congressional village. The loss of 
     expertise, insight and institutional memory--not to mention 
     fundamental decency--that comes with the departures, some 
     voluntary and some not, of people such as Reps. John Spratt 
     (D-S.C.), James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) 
     and Sens. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and 
     Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), among others, is painful to those of us 
     who care about Congress.
       Then there are other losses. Former Rep. Steve Solarz (D-
     N.Y.) died last week at age 70, after a four-year battle with 
     esophageal cancer. While he received prominent obituaries in 
     the Washington Post and the New York Times, chances are many 
     new and not-so-new Members of Congress who weren't around in 
     the 18 years that Solarz served in the House, from 1975 to 
     1993, were either unaware of his passing or paid little 
     attention to it. As a start, they should go back and read 
     those obituaries, and then make a note to read his wonderful 
     book, ``Journeys to War and Peace: A Congressional Memoir,'' 
     which will be published next year.
       I wrote a foreword for the book, in which I noted my 
     striking experiences on visits to the Philippines and 
     Cambodia; in each case, when I met with academics, high 
     government officials and others, I was asked frequently, ``Do 
     you know Steve Solarz?'' In the Philippines, actually, the 
     question was, ``Do you know Steve Solarz personally? He 
     helped save my country from dictatorship.'' In Cambodia, it 
     was whether I knew the Steve Solarz who was instrumental in 
     saving Cambodia from the murderous excesses of the Khmer 
     Rouge.
       Solarz was not a secretary of State, a Senator or even the 
     chairman of a powerful committee. He was a rank-and-file 
     House Member who, by the force of his personality, a 
     remarkable work ethic, a political savvy, an articulateness 
     unmatched in contemporary politics, a commitment to democracy 
     and human rights mixed with hard-headed sense of reality, and 
     a willingness to work across the aisle to accomplish mutual 
     goals, had a greater effect on the world than most 
     secretaries of State, Senators and chairmen of powerful 
     panels.
       Solarz traveled the world, but not with Congressional 
     delegations; he went alone. American embassy personnel 
     dreaded his arrival; they would not have to arrange trips to 
     the souk or the rug store, but would instead have to keep up 
     with 18-hour days choreographed by Solarz to include meetings 
     with the foreign minister, the defense minister, the 
     intelligence chief and the key opposition figures.
       When he scoped out situations and found corruption, abuse 
     of power and worse, he used his skills and connections to 
     relentlessly push for change. Back in Washington, D.C., his 
     office became a home away from home for dissident leaders 
     from around the world who got short shrift elsewhere. As a 
     consequence, to pick one example, Solarz probably had better 
     ties with the Kurdish leaders in Iraq than any other 
     American.
       Solarz's shining moment, perhaps, was on the House floor 
     during the stirring debate over whether to authorize the use 
     of force against Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait, 
     i.e., the first Gulf War. There were dozens of emotional and 
     wrenching speeches as Members struggled with the decision 
     about whether to send young Americans to war, and perhaps to 
     death; at the time, there were predictions of potential 
     mayhem in the desert. When liberal Democrat Solarz stood up 
     and spoke in favor of the authorization, it was truly a 
     riveting moment. Everyone stopped to listen. He was powerful 
     and eloquent, and he did as much as anyone to shape the 
     outcome. There are few examples in which an individual 
     lawmaker has any effect, much less one that is consequential, 
     from a speech on the House floor.
       It is hard to imagine another Solarz emerging in a 
     political system that is now so polarized that a powerful an 
     opinion leaders and statesmen like Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) 
     cannot persuade his own party colleagues to vote for the new 
     Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. It is even harder to imagine 
     a House Member throwing himself into peripatetic travel to 
     every corner of the globe and trying to shape events and 
     outcomes in the world without being shredded by cable news 
     and anonymously funded campaign attack machines, or finding 
     ways to build unlikely and persuasive partnerships across 
     every partisan and ideological divide. But it is not 
     impossible to imagine some new Members of both parties 
     persuaded by Solarz's example to take some trips abroad 
     despite the predictable criticism of junkets and the equally 
     predictable partisan flak, and to think about core values of 
     freedom, human rights and America's national interest as 
     transcending petty partisan interests. At least I like to 
     think is not impossible.

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